Dark Skies
by Serpentine Wisdom
Summary: AU story in which Team BBA didn't win the championships. Ch 3: We gain some insight into the mind of the most deranged Neoborg member Boris aka Bryan.
1. Ne1951

**Dark Skies**

_Serpentine Wisdom_

**Warning:** Mentions of violence, death, torture and child abuse.

**Summary:** AU story, the world championships in Russia went differently than the way we know.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Beyblade or any of its characters.

_Cover the madness, cover the fear  
no one will ever know you were here  
a figure in the hallway light  
returning like a ghost  
something that was left behind-- something in a child's mind  
a picture worth a thousand lies, a thousand words  
a thousand eyes..._

– Bury My Lovely, October Project

Chapter One: NE-1951

NE-1951 stood on his side of the dish with his launcher in his hands. It resembled the gun he usually used in the Abbey, there were only a few little differences in the design that made it easy to tell it was a fake. He looked up to stare into the blood red eyes of his opponent. They were just as blankly neutral as they had been when the owner of the eyes had walked into the Neoborg's locker room.

It had been a normal day as day went for the Neoborgs. They'd trained all morning and were just waiting for Balkov to let them go eat breakfast. S-2521 had been typing on a laptop that Balkov had lent him, he was looking for information about Team BBA. All their known strengths and weaknesses would have to be studied in miniscule detail but still be cast away in the heat of the battle. He was like that NE-1951had noticed; obsessive over details that he never had any use for. NE-1951 supposed it was because of the training, but he wouldn't know; he and S-2521 hadn't gone through the same training after all. No one did, it was shaped to fit the individual for those on their level– a little bit ironic since one of the things the Abbey and Biovolt despised the most was individuality.

S-2922 had been flipping a coin repeatedly, heads or tails; he wouldn't get to play in the final rounds anyway and was visibly bored out of his mind. But despite S-2922's relaxed pose NE-1951 could tell that he was just waiting for something to go wrong and allow him to actually do something. Exactly what, NE-1951 couldn't tell. S-2922 had never liked him and seldom spoke in his presence, not that it affected their teamwork. S-2922 was a professional in that matter; S-2922's loyalty was to his pack, just not always to the members of it.

And S-2151? He had simply been staring out the window, watching the snow falling gently to the ground, smiling. Which was enough to make 1951 feel wary. S-2151 never smiled unless he was carving someone to pieces and anyone who knew him –especially people who knew him– tried their best to stay out of his way when he graced them with a smile. Hell, even people who didn't know stayed away. Though amusingly enough, S-2151 didn't have a very intimidating smile at all it was actually quite beautiful, some would even say gentle, but it just seemed so wrong on his features. Sure, it was disturbing most of the time to listen to S-2151 talk and his unblinking eyes which seemed to see right through you –and seeing something else than what was actually there, seeing beyond someone's physical appearance– was enough to unnerve anyone. Even people who weren't exactly sane themselves, but he was surprisingly coherent and intelligent most of the time. Surprising since the Biovolt scientist usually pumped him so full with drugs that he shouldn't even be able to see straight. Biovolt claimed it was so they would be able to keep him in line, but to NE-1951, who saw perhaps a little too much for Biovolt's liking, S-2151 seemed to be much, much worse after his periods of drug-induced sleep. Maybe because he didn't really require sleep at all, who knew? 'Boris', as they had been instructed to call him in public, was the explosive kind of madman; he could be acting perfectly sane one minute, giving of no warning signs, and the next he could be exploding into action. 

NE-1951 was different from them he knew that. _They_ knew that, and it made them glance suspiciously at him keep their conversations up in voices to low for him to hear. They didn't trust him at all –not that trust was something they had much of– because unlike them he was a natural, born outside the Abbey's foreboding walls. And even though he had been barely two years old when taken away from his home and family, it still made a difference to them.

NE-1951 held no illusions of being special; he had been chosen for the bit-beast that his family possessed, nothing else. For Voltaire had once seen the might of Seaborg and had decided that it should, and would, belong to Biovolt. The only problem was when they had actually stolen Seaborg was that the ancient spirit refused to serve them and had even spoken to Balkov and said that only one of his previous master's blood would ever hold the power of Seaborg in his, or hers for that matter, hands. NE-1951 had been the youngest of his family and had therefore been the chosen one; he would be easier to form than the rest they had figured.

They had been right.

Sometimes at night he thought he could hear his mother's voice humming Russian lullabies softly in his ear or whisper soft words filled to the brim with a warm emotion that he did not recognize, he even thought he could feel her gentle touch for a few occasions. But it was nothing but his imagination. An imagination that had comforted him in his earlier years and given him the strength to stand up at dawn every morning simply to face another day of misery beyond misery.

But he never tried to escape, even though he probably could have made it with a little planning. Life on the outside, life without the Abbey or Biovolt, was unimaginable. It was confusing and very, very undesirable. He repressed a shudder of discomfort, the thought making him feel very much like a small child afraid of the dark. But he didn't have anyone to tell him that the monsters weren't real, he had never had. And even if he'd had someone say that, to comfort him with hugs and kisses instead of looking him up in an isolation cell for showing weakness, he wouldn't had believed them. He had seen the monsters, had seen what they could do.

Now he called them family.

It was strange to think that he was the youngest of the Neoborgs, when he looked like he was the oldest. Something he had the Abbey to thank for. Just because he was one of the few naturals that could survive being forced to fuse with his bit-beast, they had been very interested to see how his body would react if he went through a program of artificial improvement that was similar to that of the genetically engineered super soldiers. The soldiers he was supposed to become one of.

But when he had looked upon the team he was destined to be with for the rest of his life, in that locker room not so long ago, and just when Balkov entered with S-2841 he had realized for the millionth time that he could never be as them. The look in their eyes, it was ancient, he could practically feel the weight of eternity weighing down on him in their stares. But that wasn't the only thing, the way they thought and behaved seemed so alien – and it wasn't simply because they were born and breed Abbey soldiers either. He knew, somehow, that they had never been fused with their bit-beasts like he had but there was still something about them that… wasn't human, not even artificial ones.

And no matter how many times he was tampered with, NE-1951 could never hope to replicate or match any of them, as a soldier or as a killer – not as anything if truth were to be told. They had been created with artificial bodies and brains that could deal with constant upgrading, he hadn't. And that revelation, though it was hardly something new, always hit him like a ton of bricks – made him realize just how worthless he was compared to them. He was the runt of the litter, the omega of the pack.

Though to be honest most of the time he felt relieved that he couldn't handle as much as them. He had seen quite a bit of what they had been put through and he didn't envy them even for just a second. S-2151 was the way he was for a reason, after all. They all were. But it didn't ease the emptiness he felt, a hole in his soul growing larger and larger every day; a dull ache in the back of his mind.

With a sigh he pushed away those thoughts, a soldier didn't feel sadness, he was obedience and nerves of steel. Balkov wouldn't appreciate NE-1951 slacking off, even if it were just in his mind. He had seen it happen to too many of the children of the Abbey to let himself go down the same path. It always started small a few doubts here and there, a few comments that shouldn't have been made…

The punishment wasn't too severe in the beginning but if the subject continued to show what was, by Biovolt, considered as undesirable behavior it was upgraded. In the end they either became what Biovolt wanted them to be, or they came back quiet and zombie-like. They reminded NE-1951 of mice, small scurrying rodents terrified of everything that moved. Usually they didn't last long, there was always a predator lurking amongst the Abbey soldiers ready to put an end to their suffering – pick off the weak. Being dragged away, limp and unconscious was not something NE-1951 looked forward to.

Anyone who had been to the Abbey could understand that, but not everyone could understand the terror he felt of it. The soldiers that had been created in the labs, the group he belonged to for example, didn't seem to be able to fear much, not even torture or death. After all, how could someone who had never had anything to lose feel fear? Trying to explain to them why death and pain was something to be feared was pointless, they had it programmed into their genes. And if some of them did feel fear they were never going to admit it, but he doubted that was the case. Even S-2841, who had been away for almost eleven years, couldn't seem to understand it, though at least he had seemed to realize the need NE-1951 felt to avoid such matters.

Though NE-1951 still had the same instinct of thinking about S-2841 as a part of their team it had been hard to get familiar with him again, especially since Balkov had seemed to want to keep him away from the rest of them. Maybe Balkov hadn't been sure if it was for the best to let them all meet for longer periods of time. They had after all been following his trail for all those years, hounding him for the traitor he was, until he left the country that is and met up with Mr. Hiwatari again.

Every single one of them had known who S-2841 was even before Balkov had re-introduced him; grey hair and red eyes weren't especially common after all. S-2151's head had turned at an –for him– unnaturally slow speed towards the door even before it was opened while S-2922 had almostdropped his coin in a sudden and violent twitch and S-2521 had stopped typing to look up without ever being asked. They had suddenly been tense and there had been a feeling of growing excitement fluttering in the air.

But their expectations had gone down the drain along with the unrecognizing gaze they had received from S-2841. Though S-2151 had later calmly stated that he wasn't very surprised, he had met 'Kai', as S-2841 choose to call himself nowadays, at the Abbey just a day earlier. But not even he had known just how much about them that 'Kai' had forgotten until Balkov had explained that he believed that 'Kai's' memory had somehow been directly linked to Black Dranzer and was only recently starting to recall it all because of his contact with the bit-beast.

They hadn't wanted to believe it, but of course they did. They could all sense something was wrong with him, but they couldn't figure out just what it was and they didn't have time to either. 'Kai' turned traitor on them again and returned to his team of weaklings too soon for that. Traitors, NE-1951 thought grimly as he stared at 'Kai', did not deserve mercy. Whatever it took, whatever he had to do, he would crush the traitor here. The damnable traitor that had the drive and guts to free himself from Biovolt that NE-1951 found himself lacking.

It never occurred to him that like Hell was more than burning lava and demons, Biovolt was more then cold walls, more then physical torment. Just because you left the physical restraints behind, did not mean you had escaped it. Freedom was a state of mind that not many who had spent their youth in the Abbey could understand – least of all someone who had lost his memories.

_**To be continued…**_

If you're wondering why I keep referring to the Neoborgs as number combinations the answer is really simple. Names give you a sense of self and Biovolt doesn't want their soldiers to be individuals or have definitive sense of self.

Age when the Championships took place:

Kai (S-2841): 18

Takao (Tyson): 16

Rei: 17

Yuriy (S-2521, Tala): 18

Boris (S-2151, Bryan): 18

Max: 16

Kyoujyu (Kenny): 15

Sergei (NE-1951, Spencer): 17

Ivan (S-2922, Ian): 18

Vladimir Balkov: 52

Voltaire Hiwatari: 76

The Majestics: 16 (Olivier), 17 (Gianni/Enrique and Andrew/Johnny) and 18 (Ralf/Robert)

The White Tigers: 15 (Kiki/Kevin), 17 (Mao/Mariah), 18 (Lai/Lee) and 19 (Gao/Gary)

The All-Starz: 16 (Emily), 18 (Eddy and Michael) and 19 (Steve)

The Dark Bladers: Unknown

Judy: 37

Max's father: 40


	2. S2841

**Dark Skies **

_Serpentine Wisdom _

**Warnings:** Mentions of violence, death, torture andand child abuse

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Beyblade or any of its characters.

_Hush, little baby, don't say a word  
And never mind that noise you heard  
It's just the beasts under your bed  
In your closet, in your head _

– Enter Sandman, Metallica

_Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.  
_– Virginia Woolf

Chapter Two: S-2841

"You did it Kai, you won over Sergei!" Max's annoyingly excited voice was the first to greet Kai after he returned from the final round of his match. It never ceased to amaze Kai how Max always could sound so cheerful and happy no matter what happened. Must be a defense mechanism, if everyone believed your were happy then you must really be happy. Or something else fake like that.

Fake. Just like Kai himself in a way. As much as he pretended to, he wasn't the Kai everyone thought they knew. He wasn't the grumpy sourpuss of the Team BBA. He wasn't Kai young, genius beyblader. He wasn't even Kai, human teenager. What he was was a genetically engineered soldier – someone, no, _something_ designed for the sole purpose of killing.

He was S-2841, a _thing_, a possession at most.

"I can hardly believe it, for a second I thought you were a goner."

_/Thank you very much Rei, really your faith in me is quite touching. /_

"Way to go Kai! I knew you could beat that creep!" Ah, Takao always did have a way with words. If you compared him to whores and hoodlums, that is.

He could hear Kyoujyu's squeaky voice make some equally unimportant comment about the match but Kai blocked out his teammates' voices as he always did and sat down quietly on the bench. That match was so very obviously set-up; the outcome had been decided before either of them had stepped out to the beyblade dish. Kai was glad he had decided to close his eyes the moment he sat down, glad he wouldn't have to watch Takao's ugly mug grin down at him or see the light flash off of Kyoujyu's round glasses.

In the first round Sergei, or NE-1951 as Kai remembered him as, had seemed to want to make an example out of Kai, a warning to all who would try and stand against Biovolt and he had smugly taunted Kai about his nearly impending doom. At that time Kai knew he'd lose. It didn't, however, mean that he had to accept it lying down. That had never been his style. But when Sergei returned for the second round he was different. His face was grim and his posture stiffer than usual, he was deliberately ignoring several openings and neglecting to exploit the slight mistakes that Kai made deliberately after a while to test him. He would never do so voluntarily. Someone else might have over-looked it but Kai was no fool, he knew what Sergei was doing.

He was letting Kai win.

And that bothered Kai more than anything else Sergei could have done, never before had anyone have had to _let _Kai win. Never before had he been so insulted. If Biovolt had wanted to throw the first match just so there would be more of a contrast for the audience when it was Boris' and Yuriy's turns, that was fine. But they had made it so painfully obvious that Sergei had only lost because he was ordered to, only giving Sergei himself the orders after the first round. They were _mocking_ him, not that Kai's dimwit teammates had caught on.

He cast a quick glance at the other side of the stadium where Sergei stood rigidly, his hands clenched into fists by his sides, seeming to be in a one-sided argument with Yuriy –S-2521, he remembered– who in turn was watching him dispassionately. They were too far away for Kai to hear what they were saying but it wasn't hard to guess that Sergei wasn't pleased with his last-minute orders. No doubt he wouldn't have brought it up if any other Biovolt or Abbey personnel had been present by the benches.

Voltaire and Balkov, the ones in charge of Biovolt, were so sure of their future success that they thought they could afford to throw the first game. They had humiliated him so easily and it burned in his chest and he had to stop himself from baring his teeth and snarling like an animal. He hated being made a fool of more than anything else.

But though the anger burned inside him like a wildfire, a small nagging voice in his said that maybe if he had stayed after the Black Dranzer incident, maybe he would have been just as strong as the Neoborgs. Not that he envied their beyblading talents but in contests, any contest, he could feel his opponent's energy and, to a degree, their skill level and Sergei's skill was better than his at the moment even though Kai was easily stronger in the energy department. And without a doubt Boris and Yuriy were much stronger and much more skilled than Sergei was.

It was, of course, them that Biovolt really wanted to show off. Sending in Sergei before them was like sending in a lap dog before releasing the wolves. Sergei was the calm before the real storm hit, someone that was being used to lull the Team BBA into a false sense of security. And since the Team BBA were the clever and perceptive people they were they _fell for it_. Even Boris, who was probably still duped up on whatever drug Biovolt had him on at the moment, would have been able to see through such a rouse.

Boris was the first of the Neoborgs he had become reacquainted with when he had returned to the Abbey locking for answers and power. They hadn't spoken a word to each other, just passed by one another in the halls. Boris was being led to his cell and Kai being guided to Voltaire. But that one moment they had passed each other something struck a chord in his memories. He _knew_ this guy, he was as certain of it as he was certain the sun would rise each morning, and not just as a teammate but also as someone he knew to the core of his soul.

However, Boris was, without question, completely and utterly insane. There was something in his eyes that was… wrong. Considering that, it wasn't hard to figure out why he wasn't with the other Neoborgs watching the matches. His mind was too volatile and unpredictable and his nature too ruthless and malicious for them to trust him to behave himself. Ironically, those were the exact qualities that they wanted him to show off. Because if there was something Boris was good at, it was inspiring fear. But still, it was a risky move, Boris was as stated highly unpredictable. He could chose to throw the game on his own just to spite Biovolt or he could let his temper get the better of him and lose his cool.

At the same time that Kai wanted Boris to lose the match so that Biovolt would lose their opportunity to gather more bit-beasts something in him felt a sort of kinship with Boris and wanted him to win. Not that this was something he'd ever share with the world and if anyone asked he'd lie through his teeth. But all the same there was something tiring about lying all the time and for brief moments he sometimes contemplated telling the truth. Such as letting the Team BBA know what they were really up against – if for nothing else then to see the look on their faces.

That was a thought he was quick to discard, however. Sharing was overrated anyway and lies and half-truths were an old habit of his that not even amnesia could shake. The doctrines of the Abbey had followed him from childhood to adolescence without him even realizing it. The irony of it was almost too much. He hated the Abbey, he hated Balkov, he hated Voltaire, he hated every single person and thing connected to the Abbey in any kind of way with the Neoborgs as a sole exception and he was practically the Abbey's poster boy.

Grudgingly though he could admit that it was the harsh training in the Abbey, something his body remembered when his mind failed to, that had kept him alive on the streets of Russia. The truth was that Kai had spent his entire life in Russia and only come to Japan a month before he met Takao for the first time. Team BBA believed that Voltaire raised him in Japan even though he had never said anything to assert to their assumptions. Hard to believe almost but Kai had a –somewhat– natural gift for languages that had helped him pull of the scam. Hell, he was better at Japanese grammar than Takao was. Kai wasn't entirely sure how they had done it, but the Abbey's scientist had figured out some way to manipulate the human brain to make it better suited to, for example, learning languages. So practically all of the more valuable Abbey soldiers were multi-lingual.

Of course he'd lied about what he had seen in the Abbey as well. That anyone could believe that Biovolt would do something as pathetic as tricking children into joining with the promise of becoming great beybladers, as if Biovolt would ever bother to trick them like that. What Biovolt wanted it took without regard to anyone's personal wishes. Just like Kai.

Kai wasn't the type to kill only for thrills, though he did that too, he usually had a motive – in his own mind, at least. Killing, it was something he couldn't escape even if he wanted to. It was his only reason for existence just like a weapon's. The desire to kill had been carved into every little strand of his DNA he couldn't simply _not_ kill. He _couldn't_. It had been easy in Russia. He had known where to go to find those pitiful souls that no one would miss, those who he could kill without drawing too much attention to himself. Of course he made sure to change his style several times just in case – there was no use in letting the police see a pattern.

Despite his intentions of staying hidden in the shadows he became somewhat of a legend among the homeless. They called him Demon because they didn't know either his name or his features, all they had were rumors of a dark shadow in the shape of a man with glowing purple eyes and like all legends his was greatly exaggerated and still quite true. The eyes were easily explained, they were really glowing per say. He had a pair of extra, see-through eyelids underneath his more human looking ones that were purple in color and that slid sideways like the eyelids of a bird. They covered his eyes automatically whenever he became agitated or intended to fight someone. He had never checked but he assumed they had some substance in them that made them look like they glowed.

Sometimes he could still smell the blood of his victims clinging to him, could still feel its cool slickness caressing his skin when there was none there. Did he imagine it or was he not in complete control of his actions? He didn't know and he didn't particularly care. It was the way things were and if someone died at his hands it was their own fault for being too weak. If you are weak you do not deserve to live. If you are weak you are lower than vermin. That was the truth he lived by.

Day after day living on the streets alone save for Dranzer and lacking a reason to continue. He had nothing to live for, no ambitions or dreams, but he kept on going because somewhere in the back of his head he knew he was a weapon and weapons are supposed to carry on until they cease to function. A weapon has no choice on whether it exists or not, that is up to the one holding it.

He couldn't stop killing. He couldn't stop existing. He couldn't stop running. He was ruled by the instincts the Abbey had forced upon him and he couldn't stop himself. It was nothing special. He could endure it he had no choice. But as he spent more time away from the Abbey and Biovolt and their experiments… he found a voice inside him screaming: _I want to be free_.

He didn't know where it came from. He didn't even know what he wanted to be free from. Watching and observing other people he tried to understand what freedom was. He heard the word, he knew its definition but he could not grasp its concept. It was useless to even try, he thought. The humans didn't understand it any better than he did. He gave up.

Moving from town to town he never stayed in the same place for long. Something was tracking him, had been for years. Dark shapes lingering in shadows. Footsteps so soft no human ear could detect them… they were always chasing after him: the Damned, hunters in the dark with eyes like his own. Their legend was up to par with his own as they supposedly drank their victims' blood like a vampire and only ate human flesh, the guardians of Hell that came to earth to torment the living and steal their souls. It was said that if you ever saw the face of a Damned your body would rot around your still living, still conscious soul.

The horror stories about them were endless and never ceased to incite his disgust, fairy-tales and children's' stories. He never quite understood where they got it all from though to be fair he never tried to find out, but still he thought it was a little bit too melodramatic. Sometimes they would come to cities or village and take some of the younger homeless or neglected children with them, anyone over the age of thirteen was killed immediately if they saw something that they weren't supposed to see. No one ever knew where they would strike or when, they only knew they never came to places with a lot of people – if they were the kind of people that would be missed. There wasn't really any use in hiding for the children. If they wanted to find you there was no place that was safe. Only the older kids and the adults had anything to gain by hiding. If you hid than you couldn't see anything important and maybe you'd live another day.

No one ever saw those that were taken alive again but on rare cases Kai would find the rotting corpses of children he knew the Damned had stolen away. Sometimes he couldn't recognize their bodies as those of a humanoid creature. He had even seen the carcass of a boy that was more dog-like than human with only a few little anatomic differences. But the human-animal hybrids were never thrown into some dingy alley to rot. He had followed the damned a few times on a disposal rounds and found out that they took the bodies to be cremated at the local morgue if they looked too inhuman to be taken as something else as a freak of nature. It was only those that were deemed worthless within the first week that were left carelessly left for dead without being destroyed because the medications and surgical experiments didn't start until after the first trial week.

Throughout the thirty years that this had been going on there had only been ten reports about it to the police and that had been in the first year since it started. After that people realized that it was useless. The government protected the damned and their superiors and anyone who brought too much attention to them or started snooping disappeared at either the hands of the secret police or the damned themselves. It wasn't common knowledge even among the ones initiated but it had been Stalin who had initially thought up the idea only he had died before they had the right technology for his notion to come true. Instead it had been Voltaire Hiwatari, a prominent member of the communist party and personal "friend" of Stalin who had continued his vision.

Biovolt was everywhere, in the post office, in the supermarkets, in the police, in the government, anywhere and everywhere. But they didn't know where he was and he had intended to keep it that way. That was why he moved so often and tried to avoid catching the attention of the police. Because he never stayed long and what he was, he never talked much but sometimes he would overhear conversations about himself or the Damned. Rumors were rarely true but they were even more rarely built only on lies and Kai had needed every single piece of information he could get.

The kind of people that had the information he was looking for were the kind that were willing to do anything to survive, the kind that had learned early on that life was not kind and never fair. Tired and desperate, the perfect material for future Abbey soldiers and the most sought after. They weren't preferred because they had exceptional skill or intelligence, that the Abbey could give them if they lacked, but because they were already defeated; weak and easy to break.

Without even thinking twice about it Kai had searched for those typical, almost unnoticeable, tell-tale signs of Abbey material. He did it to everyone he met automatically but his perspective changed over the years and he found himself comparing everyone to the finished product instead of the raw material. It was why he despised Team BBA. He had taken one look at them and found them lacking. Reveling in their weaknesses, joking and laughing like a bunch of fools. They would never have been able to survive the Abbey; they had too much too lose.

Normally when anyone was brought to the Abbey they didn't have much to lose, no family and few friends, not even a home. Team BBA had families, they had friends and they had homes. They had been allowed to be children their entire lives. So when going through the Abbey training they would have had something to miss, something to compare this hellish life to, and it would be too much to bear. It irritated him that they could have so much without even realizing it and still demand more.

But above all other reasons, was the fact that Kai admired power and strength. He always had. Team BBA had powerful bit-beasts all right, but that was all they had. Their mental strength was, in Kai's opinion close to nil. It couldn't be anything else. Team BBA had been raised to be weak, lazy and overly friendly in situations when they should be hard as iron. They even made the mistake of thinking of Kai as their friend. He barely knew them and they didn't know anything about him worth knowing so what made them come to that conclusion he didn't know. The only ones he could maybe, hesitantly, call friends were the Neoborgs.

Kai had never known why he had the strange urge to run as fast as he could to get away from the Damned. Running away was never something that had agreed with him and somehow… he felt like… like he belonged with them. It was a strange feeling for someone who was always completely and utterly alone. At times when he had been close to being captured he wondered if that was not exactly what he wanted; to be back with those he belonged with. It was only a little voice in the back of his head that warned him that no matter what, he could never go back. And he had listened to it.

Until the world championships in Moscow.

With the walls separating him from his memories crumbling around him he was strangely vulnerable. To know his past in its entirety was a passion that consumed him and turned into obsession. It was the first real passion he had ever had, he would recall later. He had left Team BBA not for the promise of power, though that was a factor as well, but for the sake of retrieving the lost pieces of himself that he knew could only be found within the cold, foreboding walls of the Abbey.

He found what he was looking for in the Neoborgs. They were the ones he belonged with. They were a set of weapons, the ones he always expected to be by his side that were never there. Their movements and gestures were imprinted in his mind and he knew they were the most important parts in his life, were he anyone else he would have called them his precious people. The only ones he would not lift his hand against with murderous intent.

Now that his memories had begun to return at a more rapid pace –in fact, ever since he'd got Black Dranzer for the first time memories just seemed to be welling in– Kai could remember them quite clearly. Especially Yuriy and Boris who were both exactly the same age as he, with not even as much as a second's difference, and both as inhuman as he. Artificial creatures with strength and speed that no other humanoid being could ever dream of. They were his brothers in a sense beyond mere blood ties.

Boris had shared a cell with him in their early years before the Abbey… changed him. They were always made to fight each other in training but instead of breeding animosity as had been expected it brought them closer. They were young and not quite as broken yet back then and they found a kindred spirit in one another. After all, they were two vicious, ferocious weapons with very many in commons besides that.

But Biovolt took Boris away for his special training and when he came back he was shattered, broken. A shade built of nightmares, suffering and hate. No one was quite on the clear on what had happened to him and no one liked to think about it; Biovolt's scientists had tampered them all with and they knew that monsters like Boris were not easily created.

And Yuriy…

"Hey Kai, you in there?" Takao's obnoxious voice broke through his chain of thoughts.

"What is it?" His famous Glare of Certain DeathTM still worked wonders because Takao who hadn't been expecting such hostility hesitated for a moment and looked a little bit nervous, unfortunately he quickly regained his usual carefree attitude.

Kai liked to compare him to a cockroach: it didn't matter how many times you shot him down he would _always_ come back to bother you another day. Of course Takao had no idea of how dangerous he really was and he never would fortunately for him because he would not have survived it. Kai couldn't let anyone figure out his little secret quite yet when he had worked so hard on keeping it as it was supposed to be: secret.

Who knew what would be done with him if the world found out. Humans, though vastly inferior to him in every imaginable way, were superior in nothing else than sheer numbers but that was enough. Kill one and twenty others would take his place; there is a limit to how long a weapon can keep on fighting on autopilot without someone directing them. Kai was a weapon he was not immortal. He was strong but he was alone against the world. Humans were predictable; they wouldn't stand for the experiments done by Biovolt. Look only at how they treated the mere idea of cloning another human. Of course Kai wasn't human and neither were most other of Biovolt's projects but he looked like one and that would be enough for there to be public outrage at what had been done.

Kai wouldn't mourn Biovolt's fall should it come to pass but he admitted there were certain benefits to take part of their training. Say what you will about their characters but Biovolt's instructors were the most skilled in the world. Had he stayed under their thumb who knew how strong he would have been now? And power was always important aspect to take into consideration. However, he had no wish to reacquaint himself with some of the Abbey's more… harsh training.

He remembered all too well now the days and nights he had spent in the isolation cell when he hadn't progressed enough or the trainers felt especially sadistic. Several of the children brought in from the streets died in there. Even after going through various tests and alterations they couldn't stand the cold and the starvation as well as the artificial lab rats, as Kai's kind were called, could. He knew because he was sometimes one of those on clean-up duty when it came to removing the corpses from the isolation cells. It was a little bit tricky at times to remove all of the corpses as they tended to freeze stuck to the floor, skin to stone. It was a real bitch to get them loose without some pieces breaking off.

The guerilla warfare training had actually been thrilling, for the lab rats anyway –they always ganged up on the natural born– it was their instinct to hunt and kill prey. The mortality rates of those lessons were surprisingly low but they instead had the highest rate of serious wounds. The medical section always complained about all the almost-crippled, almost-dead "students" they were forced to take in. No one complained to being taken to the medical ward in turn but most would rather have been left to die then be dragged there. The symphonies of screams that echoed through the lower planes of the Abbey were a nagging reminder of just why everyone hated to take a little trip to the doctor.

Only the scientists were worse and even the lab rats feared them. It was a mind-breaking experience, lying on a scientist's table, screaming and pleading until your throat was too sore for a mercy that would never come. At least lab rats had the sense to stop screaming after the first few times. Of course sometimes that was only because they were choking on their own blood or fainted from the pain – the scientists never bothered to use anesthesia on the lab rats.

That was not all that happened there, far from it, but Kai rarely bothered to think about it. To put it simply it was a place where weakness meant death. In a strange way it was still home. Rather strange considering what he had gone through there but Kai wasn't a person and in his mind that was the only excuse he would ever need. There was something about the grounds of the Abbey that was important, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

After having lived all his life in such a place as the Abbey it had been strange when he first came out on the streets. Amnesia notwithstanding he still did not behave like an ordinary child and he had been unable to adapt to the society he found there. He escaped his first, and only, orphanage after merely three days. The close contact with other people had had him on edge and he'd broken the arm of a "fellow orphan" and crushed the ribs of another for touching him on the shoulders. Immediately after his misbehavior he had left in the classic hit-and-run style he would employ when he started killing.

"Hey man, don't look at me like that. We were just congratulating you and you just zoned out completely." Kai glowered at Takao, wishing he'd shut his mouth for once, not that Takao noticed. "The second match starts in about five minutes. We are _so _going to kick their sorry asses all the way back to the Abbey!" He exclaimed. "Right Rei?"

Rei, who sat next to Kai, turned his head towards them and flashed a fanged smile in their direction. He got up from the bench with sort of grace that spoke of years of martial arts training to go meet Boris who was already in place on the other side of the beyblade dish. If Boris was in a bad enough mood, which he usually was, this could very well be the last time anyone ever saw Rei alive. The Chinese blader certainly had skill in fighting, it could be seen in his posture and in the way he moved. But he was no where near a match for Boris who was the fastest of all the lab rats –so fast that at times even Kai couldn't see him move. Predictably enough Rei, though more modest than Takao, answered confidently that with Drigger, who had returned not long ago, at his side he couldn't lose

It reminded Kai of when he had thrown Dranzer away after noticing that his memories came back more quickly without it around. He would never have so much confidence in a spirit to help him out as Rei seemed to have. Oddly enough he would never throw Black Dranzer away as carelessly as its red counterpart. Black Dranzer felt like a part of himself instead of just an otherworldly spirit.

Kai frowned. "Don't underestimate Boris, Rei. He's a much stronger fighter than Sergei is, and to top it of he's completely ruthless, watch out for yourself, okay?" It was peculiar how easily the sentence slid over his tongue, a lie in itself to protect the character he was playing. Concerned but in a gruff, I'm-not-used-to-being-concerned kind of way that fit excellently with the Kai that Team BBA were familiar with.

Predictably, Rei nodded understandingly and the smile slipped of his face to be replaced with a more serious expression. He could always count on Rei to be mature when it was necessary. Though unfortunately the same could not be said for the other two active Team BBA members.

"I will, but you better get Takao to be a little bit more cautious about facing Yuriy, we don't need having him make any stupid mistakes. If the Neoborgs win this match _he_ will have to be the one to stop Biovolt."

_/Takao winning against Yuriy? You have too much faith in him Rei. Takao is weak. /_

The outcome of these championships was clear: Biovolt wins again

Rei only had a very slim chance of beating Boris, and it would most likely only happen if Boris wanted to be defeated, but Takao might as well hand in the towel his fate was sealed when he picked Yuriy as his opponent. Yuriy wasn't like Boris, he wouldn't just let someone win because he felt like it or lose his composure just like that. In all likelihood he had the entire match planned out to the slightest detail already and was just waiting for his time to cause some damage.

Yuriy was standing to himself a few feet away from Sergei who was sitting with a somewhat sulky expression on his face as far away from the red haired team captain as he could. He didn't even spare the tall blonde so much as a glance; instead he was looking at Takao with his arms crossed over his chest. His face and eyes were neutral, as always, but the tension in his posture told Kai he was anything but calm. Yuriy's temper was actually worse than Boris' was but he never let it control him; he was a creature of logic and calculations.

But that was only the surface and underneath it there was a rage boiling hotter than lava and right now all that anger was directed at Takao who was too stupid to notice, at least that was Kai's theory. This was about more than just a challenge, though Kai could easily see Yuriy being offended that the snot-nosed brat thought they were in the same league, Yuriy was too angry, too hateful for that to be it all. What it was, however, Kai couldn't say. He had never tried to figure out Yuriy's mind only accepted it as it was. If Takao was Yuriy's enemy then he was Kai's enemy as well.

It didn't matter that Takao and his team had saved his life, or at least that had been their intent, in a situation where Balkov would have left him to survive on his own or die in the attempt. He felt no gratitude or companionship with them whatsoever. He only endured their presence because they were against Biovolt. On his own Kai could never go against his former superiors, it was an impossibility. However he could let himself be used by someone else against them, a weapon didn't discriminate after all. But until his users saw the necessity of Kai's own ruthless tactics he couldn't do much so he had to make them realize just what it was like living in a world where Biovolt was god.

"I'll try. Good luck." Now all he had to do was wait for the inevitable.

Outside the skies were dark with heavy storm clouds.

_**To be continued…**_


	3. S2151

**Warnings:** Mentions of violence, death, severe child abuse etc. this isn't a fluff story if you didn't already know.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Beyblade nor any of its characters, Also I am not making any money out of this fanfiction nor do I intend to. I write this solely for my own amusement.

**Author note:** This is Boris' (Bryan) chapter. I was a little unsure of how to portray him from his own point of view. Would he be the kind of madman that knows he's insane and doesn't care? The type that thinks he's perfectly sane? He was actually much, _much_ more difficult to write than my psychopath version of Kai – which was why this chapter took so long to get done. I've rewritten this _five_ times.

_And I never really sleep anymore  
And I always get those dangerous dreams  
And I never get a minute of peace  
And I gotta wonder what it means  
_– It Just Won't Quit, Meatloaf

Kai S-2841

Yuriy S-2521

Boris S-2151

Sergei NE-1951

Ivan S-2922

Chapter Three: S-2151

S-2151 stared blankly across the stadium, that black-haired member of Team BBA was supposed to be a great beyblader. He was said to be tough, stubborn and skilled but still not arrogant or too aggressive. He was probably the kind of person that always fought honourably and didn't hold hard feelings if he lost, S-2151 thought with a derisive sneer. He most likely grew up in a small, close-knit community in some remote area where politeness was very important but still not all-consuming. And he practised some form of martial arts that S-2151 didn't know the name of. It was screamed out to the world simply in his stance and the tilt of his head.

There was an alien aura surrounding the boy, something that was a part of him but as the same time separate. Grace, strength and something more…an intangible smell of deep forests and clear rivers and the echoing roar of a creature that was born to hunt… there was a sense of relaxed readiness… It had to be his bit-beast. It was a hunter, a killer just like S-2151 in a way. But the only question he cared about was whether it was strong or not. Whatever the answer he would still have to steal it just like Biovolt wanted him to but it had been a while since he last had a fight because of this tournament and he was getting impatient. Anyone weak wouldn't last long against him, of course the term 'weak' was relative but as long as the black-haired boy could keep his attention for the duration of the match there was no problem. If he was too weak S-251 might kill him without even meaning to.

It never crossed his mind that his opponent could actually win the fight. He was skilled, for a civilian, but he was still too weak to be a real threat. The weakness S-2151 saw in him was not what most people associated with the word weak or even what Biovolt considered weakness. It was a kind of weakness that didn't exist quite but could only too easily be brought into the world. It was a bit like seeing the cracks in the glass before it shattered. The enemy's downfall would be in his strength of character, his ethics and sense of self-worth. With the right approach he would crumble more easily than a house of cards in a gust of wind. Sometimes the strong were the most fragile of all, they tended to have a harder time adapting than others because they truly believed in their convictions with all their heart and soul. Someone who was inherently weak was also easy to form, like clay. They would survive where the strong would break in tiny, tiny little pieces. Even if they could pull themselves back together it would only form some twisted form of mosaic.

S-2151 knew this all to well. There were times when he felt like maybe, a long time ago, he had been strong, too. Perhaps that was why he could see the weaknesses of others so easily. As far as he knew very few of the lab rats were as good at reading people as he was and never to the same extent. Just by watching a person's body language he could paint a clear and often accurate picture of their personality, background, their strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Of course the accuracy of his predictions depended on how much time he had to observe his target but for a fight he could easily pick out the most important weaknesses he needed to know in very short time. Most people weren't aware of it but they might as well be shouting their problems at the top of their lungs just by their posture. What they tried to hide, what they didn't even attempt to keep secret and sometimes what they didn't even know… it was easy to see for him.

There was no reason for S-2151 to worry about the outcome of the match. Even had he not had his talent at reading people they were not equals. Out of all the lab rats the Abbey had spewed out over the years S-2151 was the one best suited for killing. It was what he had been made for. S-2521 was a great strategist and genius with most technology. S-2922 was the weaponry and explosives expert of their unit, with a talent at mixing up poisons and drugs. S-2841, cold, hateful S-2841 was the one most like S-2151. If one were to equate him to a profession it would most likely be a spy, or secret police. S-2151 was only a killer. It was the only thing Biovolt would ever use him as and the Abbey had spent a lot of time turning him into an efficient a killer as they could.

He felt no particular dissatisfaction with the role that he had been assigned to, somehow it felt like it was a part of him and not just something he had been created for. He fought and he maimed and he murdered without much consideration, he didn't hold grudges or hate his opponents because to him they were ultimately inconsequential. It was the fighting itself that attracted him and time to time he could feel glimmers of an unfamiliar feeling rushing through his chest. What the feeling was, S-2151 didn't know but he thought, maybe it was happiness. Despite that he loathed always being told who he would fight, who he would kill, by those who claimed to be his superiors like he was a child. But this time it was different, this time he for once had no resentment over being ordered around like was retarded.

Logically, he couldn't say why but the determination in the black-haired boy's eerie yellow eyes made him angry. Here was someone fighting a battle he couldn't really understand a battle he in all likelihood didn't know much about against an enemy he couldn't beat and there was no hesitation at all in his eyes. The seething rage that was building up inside S-2151 almost made him disregard his orders and just snap his opponent's neck with a simple flowing movement. It only angered him more when he realised that the Chinese boy truly believed he had a high chance of walking away from this match both unscathed and victorious. Someone who didn't even know what was really at stake was underestimating S-2151.

He had been ordered to make an example of this boy by Biovolt, which was their way of telling him that he could kill his opponent or just maim him – just as long as he made it gruesome, painful and excruciatingly long. They would, no doubt, be very displeased with him if he decided to play by the rules even if he won –as people said 'fair and square'– which he was capable of. Had the Chinese boy not angered him, S-2151 would have chosen to play by the rules just so he could piss Biovolt off but now he had decided his fate. S-2151 would not kill the person in front of him, the only one in many, many years that had looked him straight in the eye without a single trace of fear, only defiant pride and determination. It was not an act of mercy, as some would have believed, but one of dark, deep malice.

There were fates worse than death and this ignorant young man would regret dismissing him as easily as he obviously had. If there was something S-2151 could say he hated more than Biovolt it was being underestimated by someone so obviously beneath him, as if everything that he had done and everything that had been done _to_ him meant absolutely nothing. He had few memories not filled with either pain or fighting but he did not mind the pain and torture as much as the insinuation that it had been utterly useless. There was no way the opponent could have known what had been done to him but S-2151 didn't care. That he had been forced into this game, which was all too apparently designed for children, was humiliating enough. Being made to wear this thin veneer, this insipid little mask of civility and _humanity_ was even worse. To also be so severely underestimated only served to heighten his aggression.

One would think that a great corporation bent on world-domination and ultimate power would have better things for their artificially created killers to do than send them in to play a childish game of spinning tops. That they were even expected to act human after years and years of training to wear down what little humanity they had had to begin with was ridiculous. Not even Biovolt, with its myriad of complicated technology and heaps upon heaps of brilliant, prodigious scientists could unmake what they had done and make the soldiers of the Abbey human. Even for them there was a limit that could not be crossed.

But was it truly to be human? What the Abbey personnel meant when they told him to 'act human' did not match up with his experience of the human race or their history. Truth be told, from what he found out about humans was that they did no t act the way he had been told to behave. If what he had come to understand was true the lab rats of the Abbey were the most human of all creatures. He would let his act slip in this match, he would show his opponent his true face. Biovolt had wanted a gruesome and painful spectacle and he would give them that. He would show them the extent of his humanity by destroying everything that held his enemy together. S-2151 would not allow him the comfort of death but force him to suffer the agony that was life. The Chinese boy was confident, brave and chivalrous for the moment but he would pay for it dearly. When this was over he would be left only with the demons inside his head to fill him with shame and guilt and ultimately fear.

It was strange in a way that Balkov had chosen him for this deciding match, he had always been the most unreliable and the least obedient. They were showing an uncommon trust that he would do as he was told and win this for them. Two wins were necessary after all and it did not matter how well 'Yuriy' did if this match was lost. Letting S-2521 handle the last one had very little meaning. There was no way he would lose to the cocky little brat that had been preaching to them about the 'true meaning of beyblading'. What 'true meaning' was there to be seen in beyblading? It was too childish, too easy-going to have any meaning. How could you ever find anything of worth when there was no risk? When you could walk away without having lost anything other than your pride? Sacrifice was necessary to create a meaning that was even worth mentioning. Of course, if things went S-2151's way this game would have a meaning to be proud of. He would twist this game until they could see how far their ideals would last, until they couldn't hold on to their empty words anymore.

Glancing to his sides he could see many of Biovolt's executives in front-row seats, eager to see their plans come into fruition. The personnel in the abbey and Biovolt's various offices were most likely watching the live broadcast. They had all underestimated him at one point in their life, just like his current opponent, seeing him as a lesser life form barely worth a second glance. He had heard enough dismissive whispers and had cold eyes filled with contempt on him for far too long now. They saw only insanity and violence in his actions, to them he was a poor, dumb animal that they could order about as they saw fit. But he would teach them, them with all their book learning and smarts, to never forget that even a rabid dog could bite.

At the moment they were cosy in their illusion of safety. The Abbey and various Biovolt facilities in the world had the very best security that money could buy that was regularly updated every day and completely replaced twice a year. It let them have their little illusion. What they didn't know was that their precious security measures couldn't keep up with the Soldier S series' rapid, never-ending evolution The traps on the premises were not fast or dangerous enough to catch them. The electrical wiring in the fences and doors could barely even stun them anymore. And the list could continue endlessly. The guards employed by the Abbey, mostly earlier models than the S-series, the ones that had been born like regular humans were utterly useless against them. Neither strong nor skilled enough even though they were the best Biovolt had that they could trust to look after their prized experiments.

To top it of, S-2151 was developing an immunity against the drugs they were giving him. He would never be able to attack them directly for the simple reason that had designed him so that was impossible. However, having not only one but two S-series soldiers running around creating all sort of havoc would be a severe drawback – especially with someone of his destructive capabilities. Not all Biovolt's employees had been granted immunity after all and there were times when he had almost broken through the mental block that had been made a part of his genetic make-up before he was even born. If such a word as born could be could be used for him.

That was why he was given a much larger dose of drugs than any other product of the Abbey. Most of the time it was drugs used were meant to take away his focus and co-ordination as well as dulling his 'killer instinct' – as he had heard it called. But those were not the only drugs he was forced to endure, because of his body's exceptional resistance to foreign chemicals he had become the Abbey's primary guinea pig. Most pills and injections were tested on him as well as the ordinary test subjects as they liked to compare what effect the various substances had on him to what they had on ordinary people. Sometimes they even tested poisons on him – even if they were always careful to have an antidote at hand should it prove to be dangerous to him as well. It was a gamble for them but so far they had never been compelled to use the antidotes, however painful the procedures were.

It was his strange body type that made him so suited for his designated role as killer. He was not only the fastest of the lab rats, faster even than S-2841, and the capable of taking more damage than S-2521. The Abbey's scientists and doctors were fascinated with him and readily pushed the limits of what was acceptable to see exactly how much his body could take before he passed out or was in a critical state. It was usually an agonisingly slow process since they had to be extremely careful during these near-death testings so that they didn't actually kill him. They had not had permission to go as far as they did in their tests but because of his remarkable healing ability it was easy to hide the extremes they went to. Should he die, however, Biovolt would know what they had done and S-2151 was very, very valuable.

The artificial humans created by Biovolt were treated like their namesakes, the lab rats, but if even just one of them died it was a huge loss for the company. It was incredibly expensive and time-consuming work to design even a single soldier of the paltry NE series, who were born as a normal humans – often kidnapped by Biovolt and twisted and experimented on until they were barely recognisable anymore. But they didn't cost even a fraction of what the R, X and S-series cost, which was only natural since unlike the N-series they were all created completely from 'scratch'. There was no mother or father, only teams of scientists and various links of DNA, most of which wasn't human, that were put together in a strange blend and kept in incubator tanks.

Out of all the different series in the Abbey, the S-series was the rarest and most expensive. There were only three of them now that S-2841 had defected. The S-series were the very first completely artificial soldiers to have been created successfully by the Abbey. The R-series and X-series had been poor attempts to copy their design – quite unsuccessfully even though they would had been seen as miracles had not the S-series existed. Had S-2151 died because of a scientist's miscalculation… to say that heads would roll was an understatement. Any one of the S-series was for all purposes irreplaceable. With this in mind not even to crazed Abbey workers could experiment on them without the fear of death, or worse, hanging over them.

But they were only human and in their eagerness they many times forgot or were sloppy in their research. They learned hanging him was useless since his neck would not break nor would his windpipe be crushed, he couldn't even be suffocated that way. They had left him hanging for three days without anything happening. It was strange the way they had seemed almost desperate at times to find something that could affect him as it did humans. They slit his throat and it healed. They gutted him, they broke his spine, crushed his chest completely… and it healed. Some wounds were more difficult than others and took longer to heal but he had never been incapacitated for more than a month. They could hold his head underneath the water for over an hour before he started showing signs of needing air. He was pushed from the top of a ten-story building and landed perfectly without as much as a scratch other than on his clothes.

It was only when they had punctured his eyes that Balkov had found out and put an end to their research. Testing the limits was one thing but to do something that might permanently affect him was apparently not allowed. There had been much concern over his eyes and worry that even he would not be able to regenerate them. They even took him off all the drugs they had him on to let his body work it out. His vision had not returned to full capacity until half a year's worth of time had passed. It was the longest time it had ever taken to recover from an injury – even when they crushed his chest it had not taken more than a three and a half weeks. Even though his eyes returned to normal the scientists who had approved of the eye-puncturing ordeal were executed to many other scientists' pleasure, particularly of those who had helped create S-2151's eyes when he was still being made in his incubator tank. It was not out of concern for him, though, but they had put many, many year's worth of research on his eyes and many months on the actual development of them – that the eyes had almost been ruined had made them livid with rage.

There was no reason for them to be concerned over him, truly. To them he was just a thing, an object – valuable, of course, but still nothing more than Biovolt's property. He didn't have enough human DNA to even be called human and there were too many kinds of animal DNA for him to feel like he belonged to any specific species. Sometimes he wondered what he could be called, what he _was_, artificial humanoid didn't quite measure up. Was he really anything at all? How could he be anything at all? He didn't have a soul and from what he understood that was an important criteria to _be_ something. The Biovolt scientist were skilled beyond belief but there were some things not even they could create. He was just a piece of flesh that could move in the end. Emotions were a product of various chemicals produced by the body but what was a soul? What was it about a soul that made a difference? Was there even really such a thing as a soul or was it something humans used to make themselves feel important since they didn't seem to know what it was either?

Perhaps that was part of the reason he disliked normal humans. It didn't matter how weak, cowardly or vile they were – they always knew exactly what they were. They had a sense of self he could never have, not when there wasn't even a proper word for his kind. But sometimes he would remember things, strange things that he shouldn't be able to remember at all since he had never learned them in the first place. He could never tell where these memories came from, or even if they were really memories and not some drug-induced hallucination. The memories rarely made any sense but he still felt as if they were really a part of him while staying separate – always gliding just out of reach whenever he tried to reach out for them, taunting him with their elusive presence.

The images would come most vividly at the times when he managed something resembling sleep. It was not in his nature to sleep as much as the scientists seemed to. A couple of hours once or twice a week was enough and even then he was easily awoken. Sleep would bring with it the howling voice of the wind, whispers of battles long past and oddly enough a face he could barely see that always seemed to be surrounded by the fresh smell of the sea and hint of dried blood. At times these memories, these images almost made him feel as if he was a person, someone who could be given some absurd value regardless of what abilities he possessed or did not possess.

At the same time that something inside of him wanted it to be true his rational mind would not allow him to believe it. He was only Biovolt's property; the Abbey's pet experiment, and their favourite killing machine. It was all he was capable of being – the Abbey had made sure of that. He had heard somewhere that people could change but such a concept was alien to him. He was exactly the same as the day he had been woken up in his incubator, the only thing that had changed was his size. He could remember it as clearly as he could remember what happened an hour ago. S-2841 was another perfect example. He had been away from the Abbey and Biovolt's influence for many years, he had even lost his memory of all the training and experiments that he had been put through. Despite that he was exactly the same as when he had left. He carried himself the same way, talked the same way, responded the same way… there was only any difference when he was putting up an act and even then he went about it like he would have back then.

Even S-2151, for all his talents at reading body language and intentions would never have known that S-2841 had ever been away from the Abbey for an extended period of time. Biovolt could call S-2841 a traitor as much as they liked but the truth was that he was acting the exact way he had been trained to act. What S-2841 had done was merely trick his himself into thinking of the enemy as a part of Biovolt with absolute authority exceeding that of Voltaire Hiwatari. It was clever but S-2841 was also the only one who could have pulled it of, he was the most independent of them and the best liar. Even so he didn't appear to have any hopes of them winning this little skirmish. What was he up to?

S-2521 might have been able to understand but S-2151 didn't even bother trying to figure it out. He would find out eventually when S-2841 was returned to them and there was no doubt in his mind that he would return. The Chinese boy would lose to S-2151 and S-2521 would win his match without much trouble and as Biovolt expanded their power S-2841 would eventually be returned either by choice or force. Biovolt would never execute S-2841 unless it was absolutely necessary, he had simply been too expensive to create for them to throw away like a piece of garbage. S-2841 would not betray his fellow S-series soldiers, S-2151 was certain of that even if he was the only one who never doubted S-2841's loyalties. Even S-2521 was uncertain, which was maybe why he seemed to hate to hate the brat in Team BBA so much. He never said anything and rarely acted like it but loyalty to the group was something S-2521 valued very highly. The thought of being betrayed for the weaklings of Team BBA must have been what was setting him on edge. S-2151 didn't have any worries about that. S-2841 was using them, he always did, for his own gain somehow. Just what he wanted to gain was a mystery but not really relevant in S-2151's opinion, he was not a strategist and he rarely bothered to come up with anything more complex than was necessary.

All he knew was that they just needed to wait a little while, be patient. They had nothing to truly live for but Biovolt wouldn't let them die so waiting was all they could really do. Everything withered and died with time, Biovolt would be no different and neither did they but they had the upper hand – they were not a fragile as an ordinary human would be. They could afford to be patient, like a hunter lurking in the shadows, stalking its prey. Biovolt didn't have that luxury and they knew it.

They would learn the dangers of letting loose the dogs of war.

The thought almost made S-2151 smile as he prepared to show the world how much of Biovolt's humanity that he had inherited.

**_To be continued…_**


End file.
